That US-China Near Miss In The South China Sea Is A Sign Of Things To Come

This week's reported near collision between a Chinese fighter plane and an American surveillance aircraft in the East China Sea proves that China isn't afraid to strictly enforce its maritime border in the South China Sea, even if it has to risk a confrontation with the world's most powerful military.

As reported by the Washington Free Beacon, a Chinese Navy Shenyang J-11B — a domestically produced version of the Russian Sukohi-27 — passed dangerously close to a U.S. Navy P-8 Poseidon that was likely in the region to monitor "unprecedented Chinese military exercises held recently and currently underway in the Yellow Sea, East China Sea, and South China Sea."

The risks of an interception were substantial for China — the fallout of a midair collision between American and Chinese military aircraft inside of China's exclusive economic zone (EEZ) or the seizure of the plane and its crew would be complicated for both sides to deal with, to say the least.

The American plane was inside of China's offshore exclusive economic zone, which extends 200 miles from shore, and inside of its air-defense identification zone as well. Foreign ships and aircraft transit inside of other countries' EEZs all the time without triggering an attempted interdiction; the U.S., for instance, treats its EEZ as the high seas, where air traffic rules are more lax than are on land.

"China has a pretty restrictive interpretation of international law in its EEZ," Nan Li, an expert in Chinese defense policy at the Naval War college, told Business Insider, noting that China is "very sensitive about surveillance aircraft."

Bruce Bennett, a senior defense analyst at RAND, adds this has been a longstanding area of concern for Beijing. "China is very protective of the areas where our reconnaissance aircraft tend to go into," he told Business Insider. "It would be natural them to come in close and let us know that we're not happy that we're there."

China energetically polices its offshore boundary, it won't necessarily make an exception for American military aircraft.

This map helps explain why.

Business Insider

The South China Sea is the site of a slow-motion power struggle, with China claiming territory inside of Vietnam and the Philippines' EEZs. In May, Beijing took the unprecedented measure of moving an oil rig inside of internationally recognized Vietnamese waters.

Disputed oil and gas deposits, regional anxieties about China's rise, and a history of mutual suspicion and hostility between China and its neighbors make the South China Sea one of the more worrying corners of the globe.

The U.S.'s "pivot to Asia" — which includes eventual American access to five bases in the Philippines — anticipates the complexities that a newly ascendant and sometimes aggressive China will create. China's a military and economic giant, but also a self-styled global superpower that's willing to confront both its neighbors and the U.S.

Complicating matters is that different countries have different interpretations of what's allowed inside of each other's EEZs, so the boundaries for acceptable action within South China Sea aren't always clear. For instance, there's no current agreement as to whether foreign military activities are permitted in an EEZ under international law — a difference of interpretation that was the source of a 2009 confrontation between the U.S. and China.

In March of that year, five Chinese vessels intercepted an unarmed U.S. Naval surveillance vessel called the USNS Impeccable 75 miles south of the island of Heinan. The Impeccable withdrew under armed escort, and after a public protest from the Pentagon, which believed it had a right to operate within China's EEZ.

This week's incident offers more proof that China is prepared to take a hard line on its regional territorial rights — which are themselves connected to a series of disputes and conflicting claims that will only become more tense as China's ascension continues.

This doesn't mean that China is looking for war with the United States. But it's willing to assert itself in ways that could complicate relations between the two powers, or lead to confrontations that neither anticipates or even wants.

The two country's planes missed each other by 30 feet on August 19th. Next time, they might not be so lucky.